Job prospects for college grads hinge on major

May 2, 2013

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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Natalie Nguyen, 22, will graduate from UC Irvine in June with a bachelor's degree in nursing science. Here, she visits one of her old haunts: the hospital lab on campus. The Anaheim resident is one of thousands of graduating college seniors from across Orange County who will be entering the job market in the coming weeks. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Natalie Nguyen, 22, talks about her first scrubbing-up experience for the operating room, which involved a thorough, 10-minute washing. The nursing science major is excited about going out in the job market and doesn't mind traveling across country to find a job if necessary. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Natalie Nguyen, 22, published a research paper on cancer-cell metabolism when she was an undergraduate at UC Irvine. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Natalie Nguyen, 22, wears a jade pendant symbolizing the Chinese character for love. Nguyen is hopeful about finding a job as a operating room nurse after graduating from UC Irvine. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Natalie Nguyen, 22, helps a student transfer to UC Irvine. She said that the health care industry will always be needed, and that's a reason she wanted to work in it. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Academic counselor Michael Tawney helped advise Natalie Nguyen, 22, with her career choices. He says the nursing science major requires intelligence and initiative. The pair is in his office at UC Irvine's Nursing Science Student Affairs center. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Natalie Nguyen's parents are proud of her and happy she chose the health care profession. Although the job market is tough now, the UC Irvine nursing science major is excited to go out into the job market. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Natalie Nguyen, 22, will graduate from UC Irvine in June with a bachelor's degree in nursing science. Here, she visits one of her old haunts: the hospital lab on campus. The Anaheim resident is one of thousands of graduating college seniors from across Orange County who will be entering the job market in the coming weeks. CINDY YAMANAKA, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Job trends

Unemployment: Among recent college graduates, the unemployment rate stands at 8.8 percent (vs. 5.7 percent in 2007), and the underemployment rate at 18.3 percent (vs. 9.9 percent in 2007), according to an April report from the Economic Policy Institute.

Earnings potential: Among workers who received a bachelor's degree in a STEM field, nearly two-thirds, or 65 percent, were paid more than those who held a master's in a non-STEM field, according to a 2011 report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

Job ratios: Among the unemployed, there is one U.S. job for every two STEM workers, vs. one U.S. job for every three workers in the overall job market, according to a 2012 report from Change the Equation.

Future growth: Over a 10-year period ending in 2018, the number of U.S. STEM jobs is projected to grow by 17 percent, vs. 9.8 percent for non-STEM jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Natalie Nguyen speaks confidently about her job prospects as she prepares to graduate from UC Irvine next month, even though she doesn't have a job yet.

A nursing science major, Nguyen is completing the last of eight hospital rotations at Hoag Hospital in Newport Beach; she also published a research paper on cancer-cell metabolism as a UCI undergraduate.

"It's a tough job market right now, period, for nurses and health care in general," said Nguyen, 22, of Anaheim, who hopes to find a job as a hospital operating-room nurse. "But being in the health care industry is an advantage because we are always going to be needed."

Nguyen is one of thousands of graduating college seniors from across Orange County who will enter the job market in the coming weeks.

Local college graduation season kicks off this weekend, as Irvine's Concordia University holds its commencement ceremony Saturday. Chapman University in Orange follows two weeks later; UCI's is next month.

But among these college grads, not all job prospects are created equal.

Although individual students like Nguyen may not feel macro trends, national data indicate that graduates who majored in science, technology, engineering and math – or the STEM fields – will have an easier time getting a full-time, well-paying job than their humanities counterparts.

"We have a generation of graduates who are at risk because the sense of urgency to play catch-up in the STEM fields has not been heard by the academic community," said Paula Golden, head of the Irvine-based Broadcom Foundation, which advocates for strengthening STEM education. "Very specifically, our great universities are failing to understand that places like Asia have long surpassed us."

U.S. officials have predicted that the number of STEM jobs will grow at nearly twice the rate as non-STEM jobs over the next five years.

Already, STEM workers earn about a quarter more than their non-STEM counterparts, and are more than twice as likely to hold at least a college degree, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Federal officials define STEM jobs as professional and technical-support occupations in computer science, math, engineering and life and physical sciences. Educators, health care workers and social scientists are excluded from the federal definition.

"What I really do like about my program is getting the real hands-on experience and a connection to a career," Nguyen said. "It's a relieving kind of feeling to know what your next step is along the way."

Joseph Gopez, 26, a product design engineer for tech company MeredianLink in Costa Mesa, said he decided to major in computer engineering as a UCI undergraduate to maximize his job prospects.

"I felt at the time, this is where things are leaning toward," said Gopez, who graduated from UCI in 2009. "It's still a great major – there are a lot of companies out there looking."

MeredianLink's HR manager, Joy Young, said most of the company's applicants for top-tier developer positions are foreigners in need of a sponsoring work visa.

"If we had more American students, if they were more qualified and better prepared, we wouldn't have to look at other places," said Young, adding that work visas cost the company thousands of extra dollars each.

TOUGH STEM JOB MARKET

Still, competition for jobs remains fierce even in the STEM fields.

At a Cal State Fullerton job fair last month, Xinwei Shen, 23, zeroed in on technology company recruiters, hoping to land a full-time job in the computer engineering industry by this summer, even though he doesn't graduate until December. He said his job search has been frustrating.

"It's harder than I thought," said Shen, a CSUF master's student in computer engineering who is from China. "I thought with this major, they need people who majored in computer science. But I've only gotten interviews – no offers."

Career-planning officials say students like Shen are doing everything right; they're starting the process early, being aggressive and marketing their talents at every possible turn.

But in a still-weak job market, overall trends in the U.S. job market – even ones designed to work in a student's favor – can seem a distant concept to frustrated job applicants, said Jim Case, director of CSUF's Career Center.

"It's one of those rude awakenings," Case said. "Graduating from a strong STEM program may be a prerequisite to get that job, but you still have to compete for it and you still have to do your research."

Also, many students simply don't make the time to aggressively work toward finding a job while still in school, officials say.

"I'm constantly amazed when I talk to kids at graduation who say, 'I guess I need to start looking for a job,'" said biology professor Bob Koch, acting dean of CSUF's College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics. "A lot of them aren't as focused on that next step as others are."

For graduates of the life sciences, the problems are compounded by the dearth of full-time jobs in the local biotechnology and biomedical industries, said John Paja, an Orange County recruiter for the science staffing agency Lab Support in Calabasas.

"The amount of students are there, but companies are being really picky," said Paja, who works out of Lab Support's Costa Mesa offices. "Not that many companies are willing to do full-time placement."

Even Lab Support must be selective about choosing which applicants to add to its job-placement rosters, Paja said.

"It's maturity unfortunately," Paja said. "There's a lack of reliability among a lot of recent grads – people who don't show up on time, people who talk a lot of game but don't deliver."

STEM JOB DISPARITIES

Within the STEM fields, engineering and computer science generally tend to yield more job opportunities than the natural sciences, Case said.

Scientists with only a bachelor's degree tend to be confined to technician-level jobs; an entry-level scientist role typically requires at least a master's degree and ideally a doctorate, Case said.

Sahil Behel, 22, a CSUF master's student in electrical engineering, said even his major wasn't cutting it – he wishes he'd majored in computer science. He wants an electronic hardware job designing computer chips, he said, but there are far more opportunities for programmers.

"If I had been in computer science, I would have gotten a job easier," said Behel, an international student from India who hopes to stay in the U.S. "It's not going to be easy to get a job."

Still, not all university officials are convinced the nation's razor-like focus on the STEM professions is the right one.

Michael P. Clark, UCI's vice provost for academic planning, said STEM graduates tend to do well right out of college, but that in the long term, they tend to be surpassed by students with a broader educational background.

"The national discussion about STEM is too narrow – it needs to be informed by a broader and more sophisticated sense of what students need to succeed," said Clark, a scholar of French and European philosophical literature. "We're trying to equip our students with a well-rounded education so they're prepared to do a job that doesn't exist right now but may exist five years from now."

UCI graduating senior Melinda Malley, 22, said her decision to double-major in mechanical engineering and English gave her the well-rounded education she was seeking.

For a career, she will pursue engineering – "It's somewhat more practical," she said – but she emphasized that her humanities major taught her how to communicate effectively and to view engineering as an art, rather than just a math and science.

"It definitely helps to have a math and science background, but it goes both ways," said Malley, who will pursue a doctorate in mechanical engineering at Harvard this fall. "It's also really important for people in STEM fields to have writing and communication skills."

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